If you fail to renew your registration on time:

• You will no longer be able to legally provide tax agent or BAS services for a fee or other reward. 
• We will notify the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), and you will lose access to online services for agents.
• You will need to lodge a new application and you cannot provide tax agent or BAS services for a fee or other reward until the new application is decided. This new application, if approved, would result in a new registration number.

Where a registered tax practitioner company contracts with another entity to provide a tax agent service, they must use the company’s registration number in conjunction with the symbol, not the registration number of any other registered tax practitioner associated with the company.

The application fees for registration (including renewal) are $273 for tax agents and $54 for BAS agents. 

The application fee is subject to a consumer price index adjustment on 1 July each year.

Our registration process has recently been streamlined to provide a better experience for tax practitioners. If you have all the essential information on hand the renewal process should take 10 - 30 minutes to complete, depending on your type of renewal. 

When you renew your registration, you must show that you meet the registration requirements. If you are an individual, you must meet the:

• fit and proper requirements 
• professional indemnity insurance requirements
• continuing professional education requirements (for individuals only).

Companies and partnerships will also have to meet the ‘sufficient number’ requirement, which means that you need to have enough individuals in your company or partnership that are registered tax or BAS agents to provide tax agent services to a competent standard, and to carry out supervisory arrangements.

We have included family and/or caring commitments (such as maternity or paternity leave) as exceptional circumstances for not being able to complete the minimum continuing professional education (CPE) hours. In these circumstances, we will consider appropriate relief from the minimum amount of CPE hours, provided you can demonstrate that you have attempted to use the flexibility of your CPE period to manage any extenuating circumstances to comply with our CPE requirements.

Yes, you need to keep a record of your CPE activities. We have developed a CPE log that you may like to use to assist with your record keeping requirements. However, if you maintain a CPE log to satisfy membership requirements of a recognised professional association (such as CPA Australia), this record will suffice. Importantly, when you renew your registration you will need to confirm you have completed CPE in accordance with our minimum hours requirements. In addition, we may request you to provide evidence of CPE that you have completed at any time throughout your registration period.

CPE must be relevant to the tax agent or BAS services you provide and the development of your relevant personal knowledge and skills. With regard to software program training and tax and accounting software courses - these do count as CPE on the basis that effective and accurate use of a software program impacts on the skills you need to competently provide tax agent or BAS services to clients. Also, you must ensure CPE activities are provided by persons or organisations with suitable qualifications and/or practical experience in the relevant subject area. For an example of relevant CPE involving an accounting software course, refer to Example 4 at paragraph 40 of our Explanatory paper.

In relation to health and wellbeing activities, such as a mental health training, we allow registered tax practitioners to undertake educative health and wellbeing activities, providing the activities constitute no more than 10 per cent of CPE over a registered tax practitioner’s CPE period. For an example of how this works, refer to Example 10 contained in our Explanatory paper.

We recommend recording details such as, the provider, date and time you watched the webinar and learning outcomes in your CPE log. We have developed a CPE log that you may like to use to assist with your record keeping requirements.

The term ‘pro-rata’ in the context of CPE arises where a registered tax practitioner has a CPE period other than 3 years. In these circumstances, the tax practitioner should complete CPE on a pro-rata basis, given the TPB’s minimum CPE requirements are based on a 3-year CPE period.

No, if you do not charge a fee or receive a reward (for example, you are an employee or contractor) you will not need to have your own professional indemnity (PI) insurance policy in order to meet our requirements. However, you will be required to provide us with the name of your employer or principal and their registration number.

PI insurance is a consumer protection mechanism to compensate your clients in the event they suffer loss due to an act, error or omission as a result of tax agent services (which include BAS and tax (financial) advice services) you provide. Find out more about PI insurance.

This is something you should talk to a broker about. We don’t have a minimum number of years requirement for run-off cover.

When applying for registration initially, you need to satisfy us that you maintain PI insurance, or that you will maintain PI insurance, that meets our requirements within 14 days of becoming registered. Once you are registered with us, you will need to update your PI insurance details whenever there is a change in your policy, including every time the policy is renewed. You can do this via My Profile or on your online renewal application. We may ask you to provide a Certificate of Currency (or if unavailable, a Policy Schedule) in relation to your PI insurance at renewal, or when requested.

Under Code item 7 tax practitioners must ensure that any tax agent service they provide, or that is provided on their behalf, is provided competently. This includes services that are outsourced or provided offshore by an unregistered third party.

If you outsource part or all of your tax agent services (including BAS services) to an unregistered third party, you need to ensure that the work performed by the third party is under your supervision and control, or the supervision and control of another registered tax practitioner.

You are ultimately responsible for the quality of the work of the unregistered third party, including ensuring there are appropriate supervisory arrangements.

The level of supervision and control must be adequate, and commensurate with the nature and extent of the work being undertaken by the third party.  You need to make sure that:

• there are adequate supervisory and review arrangements, including having a sufficient number of individuals (being registered tax practitioners) for the work being carried out
• internal procedures are used to satisfy supervisory and control requirements, which may include activities such as: 
  • training for offshore staff in Australian tax
  • registered tax practitioners or other experts being onsite overseas
  • rotation for overseas staff to gain experience
  • appropriate quality assurance and review systems.
  • registered tax practitioners are involved so that the work being completed overseas is considered competent for Australian tax law purposes
  • registered tax practitioners are meeting their requirements for maintaining knowledge and skills relevant to the services they’re providing
  • registered tax practitioners are maintaining competence by continuing awareness, understanding and up-to-date knowledge of relevant technical, legal and business developments.

For further information on adequate arrangements when you are outsourcing work to a third party, refer to our Practice note.

Following termination of registration an individual can reapply to be a tax practitioner, however they must satisfy the fit and proper person requirements in order to be eligible for registration, even if any prohibition period has expired. 
Also, any individual that has had their registration terminated will be a disqualified entity for 5 years. A disqualified entity must give notice to a registered tax agent or BAS agent in relation to being a disqualified entity:

(a)    when seeking to provide, or providing, tax agent services on the registered tax agent or BAS agent’s behalf; or

(b)    if the entity is seeking to enter an arrangement, or has an arrangement, with the registered tax agent or BAS agent in connection with the provision of tax agent services by the registered tax agent or BAS agent.

You can make a disclosure to us by completing our complaints form. You should provide as much detail as possible, including any relevant documentation to support your complaint. Once you have lodged your complaint, you will receive an acknowledgement email with a reference number (if you have provided your email address in the complaints form). All complaints are reviewed and risk assessed but not all complaints will lead to a formal investigation. However, the information you provide is valuable intelligence and data to shape our policies, services and compliance. If we determine that your complaint is a complaint we can act on, we will undertake further enquiries. This may include contacting you for further information if you have provided your contact details in the complaints form.